2013 MLB Regular Season running thread

[RickStain]

Writing to your audience means endless feature stories about generally boring Type A athletes. Bless you if you want that life.

I hate writing about baseball so much, because an honest story about 90% of the time would be "and team A got luckier than team B on that day, ever so slightly shaded by small differences in talent."

But I can't write that, so I grit my teeth and write that some guy just really wanted to come through in the clutch situation and expertly guided his ground ball between third and SS because that's what clutch winners do.

 

[cranberry]

We understood baseball just fine without all the hoo-haa.

We didn't.

I know you'd argue this point, but we didn't.

This is true. We didn't. Today's conventional wisdom is tomorrow's myth.

Verducci's column questioning the virtue of "seeing a lot of pitches" is a case in point this week.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130423/joey-votto-jayson-werth-taking-pitches/

Do the math: hitters are swinging at the first pitch less and less and striking out more and more.

You hear so much talk about "grinding out at-bats" and "making the pitcher throw more pitches" that you would think seeing a lot of pitches is a denominator to success. You would be wrong. There is no correlation between seeing more pitches and winning more games.

 

[NDJournalist]

We still see undeserving award winners every so often, too, because of writers who refuse to acknowledge better stats. Miguel Cabrera won a damn MVP last year because he won the Triple Crown, which features two statistics that are extremely outdated.

Go away. I'll discuss this with intelligent people like dre, whose opinion I respect most highly even when I don't agree.

Cabrera won the MVP because he was the most valuable player.

Spare me this "lack of intelligence" talk. I know what I'm talking about. Mike Trout was a more valuable player than Miggy last year. Period.

 

[dreunc1542]

Also, as has been noted here many times, Moddy, something like BABIP would (should) never be used in a discussion about whether one player has been better than another. At the same time, it can often help in predicting what a player's performance might look like in the future. Why is that a bad thing?

It is not a bad thing. It is a fine thing. I can just enjoy and understand the game quite well without it. It is a tool, of many, I don't choose to use. And why is THAT a bad thing.

You know I love you, you are one of my favorite people on earth. Nothing wrong with enjoying the same game in different ways.

That said, GET THE fork OFF MY LAWN.

Before I get off your lawn, I'd like to offer one more point. Going beyond just being a baseball fan, what about being able to use these things for your job? For instance, the Nats haven't been hitting the ball particularly well. If a bunch of their hitters had low BABIPS, you could say that one reason fans shouldn't panic is that those numbers often regress to the mean, and therefore those hitters will likely start to see more balls fall in for hits as the season goes along.

You're writing for a general audience in a newspaper, not trying to impress anyone that you know "advanced statistics." I will argue until I die, which may be soon, that the average fan/reader doesn't know about or give a shirt about advanced statistics.

A few writers overuse them and they're trying to impress the enlightened few.

Write to your audience. Does that mean "advanced" stats have no place in your coverage? Not at all. But they should be used sparingly and without the assumption your average reader will have any clue what you mean.

I don't think they should be used to impress anyone, but to inform them. And I agree that they shouldn't be overused, but I do think they have their place, and also agree that if they are not used much, they should be explained in some way when they do appear. Also, over time, by using them every so often, your everyday readers who didn't understand them previously would hopefully come to understand them.

Lastly, I would guess more people understand advanced statistics than you assume. Most people in any type of remotely competitive fantasy baseball league utilize them to prepare for their drafts. There are millions of people playing fantasy baseball.

 

[Moderator1]

ND making the case for advanced statistics will not help the case for advanced statistics. Using the tired old writers don't get it line won't work either. I know many of the people who vote and they know more baseball than ND ever will.

DRE, you and I aren't as far apart as it sounds.

OK, off to see OVI. You guys have fun talking BAPIP

 

[Uncle.Ruckus]

Yeah, we did. Quite well.

Nope.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1987.shtml#NLmvp

If you want to argue Strawberry, Murphy or Eric Davis, I'll listen. But if you're saying Ozzie, then go get an STD from Herpes.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Yeah, we did. Quite well.

Nope.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1987.shtml#NLmvp

If you want to argue Strawberry, Murphy or Eric Davis, I'll listen. But if you're saying Ozzie, then go get an STD from Herpes.

Jack Clark.

Or any of the guys you mentiond. But the top two vote-getters that year? Um, no.

 

[peacer84]

In all seriousness, will baseball ever get to the point where advanced statistics are considered the norm? Standard fantasy leagues still use wins, RBi and batting average while leaving out WAR, OBP and OPS. Broadcasts still overhype wins, RBIs and batting average as well.

Incorporating advanced statistics is the key, without getting rid of what's out there. I had a fantasy league that used OBP and another one that did OPS. The more traditional stats are useful...maybe some are less important when determining the value of a player's next contract, but that doesn't make stats like RBIs less important in terms of a player's accomplishments.

 

[peacer84]

We still see undeserving award winners every so often, too, because of writers who refuse to acknowledge better stats. Miguel Cabrera won a damn MVP last year because he won the Triple Crown, which features two statistics that are extremely outdated.

Wow.

 

[NDJournalist]

ND making the case for advanced statistics will not help the case for advanced statistics. Using the tired old writers don't get it line won't work either. I know many of the people who vote and they know more baseball than ND ever will.

DRE, you and I aren't as far apart as it sounds.

OK, off to see OVI. You guys have fun talking BAPIP

Why won't it help the case? Because I know what I'm talking about? These newfangled statistics CREATE better knowledge of the game and the history of the game. They can be used on players throughout history and to compare today's stars with past generations. They really are quite useful.

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

Spare me this "lack of intelligence" talk. I know what I'm talking about. Mike Trout was a more valuable player than Miggy last year. Period.

Every time you open your browser you show your lack of intelligence.

 

[Uncle.Ruckus]

I'm not in favor of using OBP in fantasy leagues. Anything that makes Adam Dunn into a top 25 player is not something with which I am down.